The Independent Photographers Terry O'Neill Award 2007 - Results
Independent Photographers Gallery
2007 saw the inaugural Independent Photographers Terry O'Neill Award. The competition's remit was to provide a showcase for the diverse and exciting work now being created by contemporary photographers; the quality of the shortlist and winners of this year's award will certainly ensure that it is a yearly event.
From 600 entrants a shortlist of ten was created and the top three chosen from that. The First Prize winner, receiving £3000, was Nicolas Ferrando for his Paper Bag series. The work, a selection of surrealist influenced portraits using a strategically placed paper bag, gets the viewer to see familiar images in a new way. The bag forces you to create a new identity for each subject in order to relate to the image. Being an Argentine by birth, Nicolas reflected a large number of the entrants who, like him, came to Britain to study and have been based here ever since.
The Second Prize went to Clare Park for her series of self-portraits titled Self and of Self (from the ongoing series Contradictions of Anorexia and Motherhood 1988-2000), aimed to challenge our pre-conceptions of the ideal female form. Using her experiences as a classical dancer and model and, by contrast, her feelings as a mother, she portrays her perception of the anxiety surrounding standards of femininity, and the increasingly obsessive behaviour of some women in their attempts to measure up.
Ahmet Unver is the Third Prize winner. His series Gurbet/Far Away documents the Swedish landscape and looks at the Turkish community who still do not feel a part of Swedish society. Unver's parents moved from Turkey to Sweden as migrant workers hoping to someday return to their homeland. These photographs exemplify his feelings of isolation and his search for identity.
Also shortlisted were Indre Serpytyte whose moving still lifes exploring her father's murder when he was Head of Government Security in Lithuania also won her a Jerwood Award; Darren Harvey-Regan for his landscapes that explore presence and mythology; Ione Rucquoi for her portraits exploring issues surrounding gender and gender roles; Joss McKinley's still lifes previously seen on these pages in 2006; Cecilia Ostebo's portraits that test notions of personal space; Zak Waters for his nostalgic look at the few pigeon racers left in this country and Liz Hingley who took homeless people into designer show homes in order to question what is home and what is homelessness.
"Photography in the UK is going through a hugely exciting and innovative period, with photographers moving the medium into ground-breaking areas. This inaugural year of The Independent Photographers Terry O'Neill Award has been a great success..." Terry O'Neill London August 2007
The exhibition of all the short listed images shall be touring the South East this autumn and winter.
4 September- 13 October
Independent Photographers Gallery, Battle, East Sussex
Street address: 
